What does it say about the Huffington Post when one of their religion bloggers traffics in unproven charges about supposed racial slurs hurled at Congressman John Lewis at the March 20 Tea Party in Washington D.C.? Here is Eddie Glaude, Jr., Professor of Religion at Princeton University, performing his Pinocchio impression:

The word n----er found its way back into our national conversation recently. Some tea party activists hurled the epithet at Congressman John Lewis. Along the way they called Representative Barney Frank a faggot and spat on Congressman Emanuel Cleaver. This venom was supposedly provoked by health care reform; it only revealed how debased our public conversation has become.

Good news, Eddie! The Breitbart Prize for finding any video of that event in which the N-word was supposedly hurled at John Lewis has now been increased from $10,000 to $100,000. With dozens of video cameras recording that event, it should be an easy matter to find such a video...if it exists. Of course, actual proof that this incident happened seems not to matter a whit to Glaude. Instead he uses an unproven charge to deliver a sermon to condemn what did not happen:

...Our faith fortifies our prejudices instead of expanding our reach towards others. When matters turn for the worse, the ugliness of our souls is too often revealed. We scapegoat and, forgetting the lesson of the Good Samaritan, we become indifferent to the suffering of others. Americans have a long history of doing this.

How about a sermon about how lying is harmful to the soul? And now for Glaude's money quote:

...The tea party movement reminds me of the White Citizens Councils of the 1950s and 60s. Theirs was a passionate and, for some, respectable argument against the overreach of government: school desegregation threatened their form of life. They were wrong and needed to be vigorously opposed by their fellows. Sadly many stayed silent. Tea party activists feel that Obama and the federal government pose a threat to their form of life. And they give voice to that worry without any regards to their fellow citizens who disagree with them - revealing the malice in their hearts.

Speaking of "malice in their hearts," what kind of special malice does it take to repeat an unproven charge in order to smear the Tea Party movement?

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